


When Your Options Are All Dead Ends

by LibraryMage



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Autistic Character, Autistic Sabine Wren, Found Family, Gen, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 14:05:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12706503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibraryMage/pseuds/LibraryMage
Summary: When Sabine was left for dead, she was sure she really would die.  She didn't think for a second that a group of complete strangers would come to her aid.





	When Your Options Are All Dead Ends

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for: major character injury; major injury to a child (blaster wounds; not graphic)

Sabine was a survivor.  Always had been, always would be.  She had survived her mother.  She had survived the Academy.  As a bounty hunter, she had survived so many life-or-death situations that she could no longer count them.  Two blaster wounds in the gut was nothing she couldn’t handle.

Or so she had thought.

She had forced herself to move.  She couldn’t walk, so she’d had to crawl, trying not to think about the dirt she was rubbing into the wounds as she did and the infection it might cause.  She had dragged herself out of the tunnels where Ketsu had left her only to find herself in a dark, deserted alley.  She pulled herself, shaking, toward the wall and just barely managed to prop herself up against it.

Tears were streaming down her face.  She didn’t even know when she’d started crying.  She hated it.  She’d always hated crying.  All it ever did was make her feel worse.

She tried to press her hand against one of the blaster wounds to stem the flow of blood, but her arms felt like they were made out of lead.  The tears started coming even harder.  She couldn’t do anything.  She wasn’t going to find help.  No one was going to find her in time.

She wasn’t going to survive this time.

_Please just let it be over soon,_ she thought.

But she knew it wouldn’t be.  If these injuries were going to kill her quickly, it would have happened already.  As she sat there, unable to move, unable to do _anything_ , Sabine knew her death would be slow and agonizing.

Her thoughts strayed to Ketsu, to her friend turning on her with a blaster in her hand.

_“Sorry about this, little sister.”_ Liar.  Sabine knew she wasn’t sorry at all.

Sabine felt rage building and building in her chest until it exploded out of her.  She lashed out, her anger giving her just enough strength for that small movement.  Her fist hit something metal beside her and the sound echoed through the alley as Sabine slumped over, completely drained of what little energy she had left.

She thought she heard something.  Footsteps maybe.  Seconds later, a hazy figure came into her field of vision.  A green-skinned Twi’lek crouched down beside her, muttering something in a language Sabine didn’t understand.

“It’s okay,” she said in Basic, pressing her hands over Sabine’s injuries.  “You’ll be okay.”

She looked back over her shoulder and shouted “Kanan!”

Sabine wanted to protest, wanted to say _please stop, please just let me die._   But she didn’t even have the strength to form the words.  All she managed was a weak “no” in a voice so quiet she didn’t even think the Twi’lek could hear her.

* * *

 

Sabine woke up somewhere with dull gray walls.  She turned her head and saw the same Twi’lek woman sitting not far from wherever she was lying.  The woman leaned over and put a hand on Sabine’s shoulder, stopping her from moving.  It was all Sabine could do not to shudder.  That soft, pitying look in the woman’s green eyes reminded her a little too much of the first time Ketsu had found her sobbing in a storage closet at the Academy.

“You can sit up if you want, just be careful,” she said.  “And if it hurts too much, just lay down.”

Sabine nodded.  The woman removed her hand from Sabine’s shoulder and she slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position, grabbing the blanket that had been covering her and dragging it up with her when she realized she wasn’t wearing anything over her chest.

“Sorry,” the Twi’lek said.  She held out a shirt to Sabine.  “I had to get to the wounds and yours was covered in blood, anyway.  You can put this on if you can move enough to do it.”

Sabine took the shirt and pulled it on, her face flushing a little.  She winced as she moved her arms too much, but at least she was covered up.

“Thanks,” she said.  “For…” she gestured to her stomach, where a bandage was now secured over both her wounds.  She glanced around the room.

“Where am I?” she asked.

“You’re on my ship,” the Twi’lek said.  “It’s called the _Ghost._   I'm Hera, and this is Chopper.”  She gestured to an old orange astromech with mismatched legs.  “He’s not a medical droid, but he helped make sure you stayed alive.”

“Well, thanks, Chopper,” Sabine said, managing to smile a little.  Talking to droids was so much easier than talking to sentients.  Chopper let out a small, proud-sounding chirping noise.

“I think he likes you,” Hera said.  Chopper responded with a series of short beeps and whirring sounds, indicating that he did _not_ like her, he didn’t even _know_ her.

“I was trying to be nice,” Hera told him.  She turned her gaze back to Sabine.

“You have a name?” she asked.  Sabine hesitated.  This woman might have saved her life, but she was a stranger, and there were a lot of people out there, mostly Imperials and other bounty hunters, who would’ve been glad to let her bleed to death in that alley.  For all she knew, this woman was one of them and had only saved her because she didn’t know who Sabine was.

“No name is fine, too,” Hera said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sabine said.  “I should go, anyway.”

Hera shook her head.  “You still need to rest,” she said.  “You're not ready to be moving around yet.”

Sabine was about to protest, but bit back her comment.  She knew Hera was right.  She’d just been shot twice and been brought back from the brink of death.  For all she knew, she’d just woken up from days of unconsciousness.

“How long was I out?” Sabine asked as she realized this.

“A little less than three days,” Hera said.  “We were just starting to talk about risking taking you to a med center.”

“We?”

“My crew and me,” Hera explained.  “There are four of us, including Chopper.”  Her tone changed as she shifted the subject away from her crew.  “Now that you’re awake, how can I get in touch with your family?  They must be worried.”

Sabine shook her head.  “They’re not -- I don’t --” she stammered, not knowing what to say.  She didn’t know this woman or her crew.  If she said the wrong thing, revealed the wrong information, she might find herself being dropped at the nearest Imperial outpost.

“They aren’t looking for me,” she finally said.

She saw Hera glance down and to the side and felt something in her chest burning.  The last thing she wanted was anyone feeling sorry for her.

“Well, you’re safe here for as long as it takes for you to recover,” Hera said.  “Why don’t you try and get some real sleep?  I’ll be back to check on you in a couple hours.”

Hera stood up and dimmed the lights in the room.  As she was about to leave, she paused in the doorway.

“Whatever trouble you're in, it doesn’t matter here,” she said.  “You don’t have to tell me what happened, but whatever it is, as long as you’re on my ship, you’re safe.”

* * *

 

For the next two days, Sabine was stuck on bedrest, only allowed to get up to use the refresher.  And even then, Hera would hover over her and wait outside the door.  Sabine knew Hera was just looking out for her, but she hated feeling like she was made of glass, and she wasn’t too fond of the idea of Hera and her crew going out of their way to help her.

There were two others besides Hera and Chopper.  Sabine had met them when they had taken their turns to watch over her, since Hera said someone should keep an eye on her at all times for the next couple days.  Once they’d gotten past the initial awkwardness of meeting a new person, Sabine thought Zeb was pretty okay and he seemed to like her well enough, too.  Kanan didn’t say much, and Sabine could practically _see_ the walls built up around him, but when he did have something to say, he was just as kind to her as Hera was.  It bothered Sabine.  The last thing she wanted was to get to _know_ and _like_ these people.  That would just make it harder when she was finally able to leave.

“You’re gonna be okay to move around on your own soon,” Hera told her on the second day after she’d woken up.  “I’m willing to take you wherever it is you need to go.”

“I can manage on my own,” Sabine said.  The truth was she didn’t know what to do next.

“Do you have anywhere you can go?” Hera asked in a voice that made Sabine suspect she already knew the answer.

Sabine shook her head.  Deep down, she knew exactly where she wanted to go.  Home.  She wanted to go back to Krownest and see her parents and her brother.  She wanted her mother to hold her and tell her it would be okay and they would protect her.  But that wouldn’t happen.  It couldn’t.  Sabine had made her choice, and they had made theirs.

“We’ll figure something out for you,” Hera said.  “Until then, you can stay with us as long as you need to.”

“Thanks,” Sabine muttered.  Though in her head, she was already trying to figure out how she could get out of here in as little time as possible.  She was already risking a lot, staying here as long as she had.  It was time to move on before any of them figured out who she was and turned her in.

“If you’re in trouble, we can help you,” Hera said.  “That’s sort of what we do.”

Sabine shook her head again.

“I’ll be okay by myself,” Sabine said.  “Just as soon as I can stand up on my own.”

* * *

 

The third day after Sabine’s awakening, she was once again stuck in bed.  A few hours earlier, Hera had let her get up and try walking without someone else’s support.  She _had_ been able to do it, technically, but she’d only managed to make it down the corridor where everyone’s cabins were, to the railing overlooking the cargo bay, and back again before she was too worn out to keep going and had been forced to return to her bunk.

Hera had lent her a datapad to keep her from getting bored to tears now that she was no longer sleeping most of the day away.  Sabine had found some books stored on it and was reading a cookie-cutter mystery novel whose ending she was pretty sure she already had figured out.  She was just considering skipping to the end to see if she was right when Zeb’s voice cut through the silence.

“How’d you end up in that alley, anyway?” he asked.  Sabine almost dropped the datapad as her hands twitched violently at the question.

“Got shot,” she said, setting the datapad aside and pulling her knees closer to her chest, wincing at the ache in her abdominal muscles as she did so.

“Yeah, I figured as much,” Zeb said.  “But you’re right, it’s not my business.”

Silence fell over the room again, a slightly less comfortable silence than the one before it had been.  When Sabine spoke again, it was almost involuntary, the words coming out like they had a will of their own.

“I got shot by…someone I trusted,” Sabine said.  “And she left me.  I don’t really want to get into why.”

“’m sorry --” Zeb’s words were cut off by a very noticeable pause “-- kid.”

He shrugged when Sabine looked over at him quizzically.

“We still don’t know your name,” he pointed out.

“Oh,” Sabine said.  “It’s Ria.”

She and Ketsu had each made sure to have at least one alias that was clean, with no warrants or bounties or charges attached to it.  Ria Talla was hers.

“That’s not your real name, is it?” Zeb asked.

“No,” Sabine said.

“Fair enough.”

* * *

 

By the fifth day she’d been awake, Sabine was doing well enough that she was able to eat meals in the galley with the rest of the crew.  It made her feel a weird mixture of warmth and discomfort.  Hera and Kanan and Zeb and Chopper, they acted almost like a family, and just being able to be around them and see how much they cared about each other and _liked_ each other made Sabine feel just a little more hopeful.  Things had gone wrong with Ketsu, but that didn’t mean they’d go wrong with everyone, right?  One day, maybe she could find what they had.  _Not that I need to,_ she reminded herself.

But she also felt so uneasy around them because they were treating her, a stranger, the same way they treated each other, and she just didn’t know what to do with that.  She didn’t want to shut them out -- why not, she had no idea -- but she didn’t want to get attached, either, knowing it was only a matter of days before she’d never see any of them again.

“I can help,” Sabine said as Kanan began gathering up dirty dishes on that fifth night.

“You should be resting,” he told her.

“I feel fine,” Sabine said as she stood up.  It was even true this time.

Kanan shrugged and tossed a clean rag to her.  “I’ll wash, you dry,” he said.

They worked in silence for a few minutes before Kanan spoke up again.

“You figure out where you’re headed yet?” he asked.

Sabine shook her head.

“And you can't go back to your family?”

She shook her head again.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said, her cheeks burning with embarrassment as she heard her voice crack.  She felt like the bottom was dropping out of her stomach as she felt tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes.  She set down the dish she was holding and quickly wiped the back of her hand across her eyes.

“Sorry,” Sabine said, brushing her tears away.  “I really don’t like…feelings.”

“I know what you mean,” Kanan said.  There was a strange edge to his voice, and when Sabine looked up at him, she got the sense he wanted to say something else.

“What?” she asked.

“Look,” he said, putting down the dishes he was still holding and turning to face her, “I don’t know if I’m stepping over a line here, but when I wasn’t that much older than you, I was in a lot of pain, and I ended up doing a lot of really stupid things because I didn’t like having feelings either.  I know they hurt and they can be embarrassing, but trying to get rid of them doesn’t end well.”

Sabine just looked down at the floor, her mouth pulling into a line and her shoulders creeping up toward her ears.

“I -- let’s just --” she gestured at the sink.

“Okay,” Kanan said.  “We don’t have to talk about it.”

As they silently returned to their work, Sabine felt something sinking in her chest.  Kanan was giving her advice.  About feelings.  Like he actually cared.  It was time for her to leave.

* * *

 

As soon as she’d finished helping Kanan, Sabine went in search of Hera.  She found the pilot where one would expect to find pilots, in the cockpit of the ship.  The door was open, so Sabine gently knocked on the wall beside it.

“You don’t have to knock,” Hera said, glancing back over her shoulder.  “Just come right in.”

Sabine hesitantly crossed the threshold and sat down beside Hera.

“I know I’ve been avoiding talking about it,” Sabine said, “but I really don’t have any specific place I want to get to.  The nearest inhabited planet is fine.  I can manage alone.”

“You’ve never really been on your own, have you?” Hera asked.  There was no judgement in her question, just concern.  Concern that jabbed at Sabine like a red-hot needle.

Sabine was about to say otherwise, but she stopped for a second and thought about it.  It was, she realized, technically true.  She’d _felt_ alone, but there had never been a time in life where there wasn’t at least one other person who had her back.  When they were really little, she and Tristan had been joined at the hip.  At the Academy, she’d had friends who looked out for her at least a little.  After she’d run away, she’d had Ketsu.  She’d always withdrawn and held herself apart from the other people around her, but she’d never actually been _alone._   And now, no matter how prepared for it she was, the thought of having to face the galaxy completely by herself scared her.

“I guess not,” she said.  “Not like you mean, anyway.”

“Ria,” Hera said, “you don’t have to leave if you don’t want to.”

“Sabine,” she said abruptly.  “My name’s Sabine Wren.”

There was no sudden flash of recognition in Hera’s eyes, no twitch of her hand toward her blaster, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.  No one could memorize the names of _everyone_ wanted by the Empire.

“Thank you,” Hera said, “for trusting me with that.”

“I didn’t tell you before because…” Sabine stopped and took a deep breath before she continued speaking.  “Because the Empire is after me.  Among others.”

To her surprise, Hera smiled.

“Sabine,” she said, “if the Empire’s after you, you’ll fit in just fine with us.”


End file.
